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address from which she had written to him in one of the
letters, and which he supposed to be the place of sojourn re-
ferred to by her mother. Here, of course, he did not find her;
and what added to his depression was the discovery that no
‘Mrs Clare’ had ever been heard of by the cottagers or by the
farmer himself, though Tess was remembered well enough
by her Christian name. His name she had obviously never
used during their separation, and her dignified sense of their
total severance was shown not much less by this abstention
than by the hardships she had chosen to undergo (of which
he now learnt for the first time) rather than apply to his fa-
ther for more funds.
From this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had gone,
without due notice, to the home of her parents on the other
side of Blackmoor, and it therefore became necessary to find
Mrs Durbeyfield. She had told him she was not now at Mar-
lott, but had been curiously reticent as to her actual address,
and the only course was to go to Marlott and inquire for it.
The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess was quite
smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man to
drive him towards Marlott, the gig he had arrived in being
sent back to Emminster; for the limit of a day’s journey with
that horse was reached.
Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer’s vehicle
for a further distance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and,
sending it back with the man who had driven him, he put up
at an inn, and next day entered on foot the region wherein
was the spot of his dear Tess’s birth. It was as yet too early in
the year for much colour to appear in the gardens and foli-